>> osgood: good morning, i'm charles osgood and this is "sunday morning.". a special i diggs of "sunday morning.". john fitzgerald kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago this coming friday. a traumatic event that haunts our nation still. all this morning we'll be remembering the 35th president of the united states, the shooting in dallas that cut him down in the prime of life. >> ask not what your country can do for you, ask you -- ask what you can do for your country. (cheers and applause) >> osgood: young and vigorous, john f. kennedy captured the imagination of millions of americans with his vision of a

new frontier. >> we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. >> it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade group. >> osgood: after dallas, the horror of his end, the dashed hopes of what might have been. throughout the morning we'll be remembering key moments of that have friday afternoon and the three days that followed and we'll be taking the measure of a kennedy legacy. the john f. kennedy who loom sod large in our national memory very much a mixture of fact and legend. rita braver will examine the facts, far teichner the legend. >> reporter: when you think of the kennedys, is it what actually happened during j.f.k.'s administration that comes to mind thor? >> think bank on all the pains

that you remember. >> we all got to think that the kennedys were mythical. they were royal, they were beautiful. >> reporter: ahead, the immortality of camelot. >> osgood: during the good times first lady jacqueline kennedy played a very big part in the creation of the kennedy mystique. but it was in the worst of times that she made her most lasting mark, as susan spencer will show us. >> reporter: i when tragedy struck in 1963, one woman helped an entire nation heal. >> the reason for mrs. kennedy's iconography, sadly, is because of the way her husband's presidency ended. >> absent tragedy, would we remember her this way? the legend of jacqueline kennedy ahead. oz oz the official inquest into john kennedy's death named lee

harvey oswald as the lone assassin. not good enough who believe a crime so immense can't have an explanation so small. we'll consider the case for conspiracy. >> reporter: will we ever know who killed president kennedy or have we always known but found the answer too hard to accept? you see conspiracy in a lot of places? >> i do because it's the nature of politics. it's the nature of power. governments lie. >> reporter: ahead, the conspiracy theory. >> osgood: much about john f. kennedy's life and death is still subject to debate. there's no disputing the symbolic power of his grave site. that's the story lee cowan has to tell. >> reporter: his resting place at arlington national cemetery is one of the most visited spots in the country-- even now. had it not been for an offhand remark, john f. kennedy might have been buried somewhere else. >> the president sort of wrote

out his own funeral orders by a spontaneous comment he made. >> reporter: how the eternal flame came to be, later. >> reporter: there be be more besides what can only be a portrait of john fitzgerald kennedy. as always, we begin with the headlines for the 17th of november, 2013. church bells rang across the typhoon-ravaged philippines today. that as major international aid efforts begin to have an impact. the official death toll is now near 4,000. boeing announced today it has over 250 orders for its new 777-x. emirates airlines led the buying spree with 150 orders of the plane. the deal is worth $76 billion. the navy says an aerial target drone malfunctioned, striking a guided missile cruiser during training off southern california yesterday. two sailors were slightly

injured. here's today's weather. the winds howling all over. it will be worst in the midwest where severe thunderstorms are expected. snowy in the northwest, warm in the northeast. in the week ahead, the east cools off and showers are coming. cold in the plains, wet in the northwest and sunny in the southwest.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

oz oz the this day millions of americans can remember what we were and where we were when we heard of the shooting of president kennedy. >> and now, for the next 30 minutes, "as the world turns." oz oz the viewers of the cbs soap opera "as the world turns." first word came at 1:40 p.m. eastern time. it happened too quickly for cameras to be in place. >> and i gave it a great deal of thought. >> here is a bulletin from cbs news. in dallas, texas, three shots were fired at president kennedy's motorcade at downtown dallas. the first reports say president kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting. >> osgood: then it was back to the soap opera. but not for long. soon after, walter cronkite was back reporting from the cbs news

newsroom complete with rotary telephones and wire machines. >> this picture has just been transmitted by wire. it's a picture taken just a moment or two before the incident. if you can zoom in with that camera we can get a closer look at this picture. >> osgood: almost exactly one hour after his bulletin this now famous announcement. >> from dallas, texas, the flash apparently official. president kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central standard time, 2:00 eastern standard time. some 38 minutes ago. vice president johnson has left the hospital in dallas but we do not know to where he has proceeded. presumably he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th president of the united states.

>> osgood: walter cronkite's words marked an incomprehensible end to a presidency that had begun on such an inspiring note. rita braver looks back on the new frontier. >> let every nation know-- whether it wishes us well or ill-- that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. (cheers and applause) >> reporter: he was the youngest elected president in history. >> the administration of president john fitzgerald kennedy begins. >> reporter: elected into office in the height of the cold war. a man endowed with grace, good looks and a wide ranging intellect. >> i believe not in an america

that it's their friend. >> he had a gift for touching the best, humane, most idealistic impulses in america. he had a gift for rallying the country. >> reporter: and 50 years after his death, americans areti so we asked robert carroll and two other historians to help us explore john fitzgerald kennedy's life and his presidency. robert dallek believes part of the attraction is that kennedy died so young. >> he's frozen in our minds at the age of 46. people can't imagine that if he were alive he'd be 96 years old. so there he is still so youthful, so handsome, so charming, so witty. >> reporter: kennedy was also a

very complicated human being. >> john f. kennedy was a marvelous human puzzle. you think you've solved it and suddenly something else happens. >> reporter: he was born in 1917 the second of nine children, into a legendary irish american family. his father joseph was a multimillionaire who served as ambassador great britain. in 1941, after graduating from harvard, john kennedy enlisted in the navy. as world war ii raged on, he took command of p.t.-109, a small torpedo boat that was ultimately cut in half by a japanese destroyer in the south pacific. >> he takes one of the men who was really injured, burned, takes his life belt and puts it between his teeth and swings something like a half mile to a nearby island dragging this man along with him.

the. >> reporter: kennedy is hailed as a hero-- but it's only after his older breaux joe-- a naval aviator-- is killed in action that john kennedy decides on a political career serving in the house and then senate. >> representative john f. kennedy scores one of the few major democratic victories. >> it wasn't his father tapping him on the shoulder saying "boy, you're next." this is a very ambitious man. i think if you rated presidents on ambition i think kennedy would be at the top of the list. >> i'm here today to say that i am a candidate for the office of the president of the united states. >> reporter: that ambition leads ken i do run for the white house in 1960. ♪ everyone is voting for jack -- ♪ >> reporter: despite what was considered a lackluster congressional career. ♪ jack is on the right track because he's got ♪ high hopes >> reporter: what i don't

understand from reading everything, what gives this man the kind of chutzpah to say "i'm going to be president"? >> well, you know, for one thing there's a genius about him. >> this is senator john f. kennedy of massachusetts. >> he can generalize from what he's watching and he knows that he's great on television. he knows there's a new force coming in politics in america and it's television. >> i accept the nomination of the democratic party. >> reporter: kennedy rolls over lyndon johnson and other more seasoned senators to become the democratic nominee. >> we disagree very fundamentally on the position of the united states. >> reporter: he then outshines vice president richard nixon, the republican candidate, in the first ever televised presidential debate. >> that's the argument between mr. nixon and myself and on that issue american supreme to make

their judgment. >> reporter: and despite his youth, inexperience and catholic background, john f. kennedy wins the white house. >> so help me god. (cheers and applause) >> reporter: and delivers an inaugural address that still resounds. >> and so, my fellow americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. (cheers and applause) >> reporter: and he has big ideas. >> this car will be a pool of trained men and women send overseas. >> reporter: starting the peace corps and soaring to new heights in space. >> i believe this this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

>> reporter: but just three months into office kennedy agrees to a risky operation to overthrow fidel castro's communist government in cuba. the bay of pigs invasion fails miserably. >> this is the cbs news extra. >> reporter: a year and a half later in october, 1962, there's a worldwide crisis after surveillance photos detect that the soviet union has placed nuke nuclear missiles in cuba. >> those are russian-made, russian-manned ballistic missile. >> reporter: kennedy orders a naval blockade and makes it clear if the russians don't yield the world could be headed for nuclear war. >> it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere as an attack by the soviet union on the united states.

>> reporter: soviet leader nikita kruschev backs down. >> if you talk about kennedy's legacy, if he had no other legacy, in the cuban missile crisis he really did save the world what from what was a real threat of nuclear war. you know, if it doesn't happen it's like you think it couldn't have happened. that wasn't the case. >> reporter: but kennedy was facing his own personal struggles. he went to great lengths to hide his case of addison's, a disease of the adrenal glands. and he had intense back pain, wearing a brace under his clothes. >> how is your aching back? (laughter) >> it depends on the weather-- political and otherwise. (laughter) >> he not only put on the brace but he would take an ace bandage and wrap in the a figure 8 around his legs and around his back to give him greater support. >> reporter: and though she and jacqueline kennedy and their two

children were the perfect picture of family bliss, history has shown john kennedy was a womanizer. >> he had call girls, he had serious glamorous women, he had some of the aides at the white house. i think there was a quality of excitement for him in this that he was -- he was a prince in the realm and he wasn't going to get caught. >> reporter: indeed, reporters at the time seemed blinded by kennedy's charm and humor. especially at his frequent press conferences. >> well, the answer is -- the first is yes and the second no. i don't recommend it to others. (laughter) >> reporter: but in november of 1963 he was focused on a host of serious foreign and domestic

issues from trying to get a major civil rights bill passed to grappling we vents in vietnam toll what became his top priority: ensuring an era of peace. war. >> he's gone right up to the fence to shake hands with people. >> reporter: to do that he wanted a second term in office. so he and jackie decide to make a campaign trip to dallas. >> now they are waiting and here comes jackie waving by. >> reporter: then, as their motorcade makes its way through city -- it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade group. >> reporter: shots ring out. >> there has been a shooting. the hospital has been advised to stand by for a severe gunshot wound. >> reporter: leaving a stunned nation and an unfinished legacy.

>> there's only one word to describe the picture here and that's grief. >> reporter: what was it that moved this nation so much? >> youth, grace, beauty, hope, promise, the crack of a gunshot, murder, horror, blood, assassination. as history goes on it will stay a very prominent part of his history. it's never going fade. it is never going to fade. over the next 40 years the united states population is going to grow by over 90 million people, and almost all that growth is going to be in cities. what's the healthiest and best way for them to grow so that they really become cauldrons of prosperity and cities of opportunity? what we have found is that if that family is moved into safe, clean affordable housing, places that have access to great school systems,

access to jobs and multiple transportation modes then the neighborhood begins to thrive and then really really take off. the oxygen of community redevelopment is financing. and all this rebuilding that happened could not have happened without organizations like citi. citi has formed a partnership with our company so that we can take all the lessons from the revitalization of urban america to other cities. so we are now working in chicago and in washington, dc and newark. it's amazing how important safe, affordable housing is to the future of our society. ♪ i'm gonna do this... no... no... no... i'm gonna beat you this time ♪ yes... (laughing) yes!! ♪

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not as cheap as it sounds considering the average wage was about $4,400 a year-- about $84 a week. the estimated population of the united states in 1963 was just over $189 million people. less than two-thirds what it is today. on november 22, 1963, americans could not call or text each other on their cell phones. cell phones didn't exist. in fact, the first push button land line phones had only gone into service four days before in two pennsylvania towns. the assassination created turmoil on the stock market. it forced it to shut down early. the dow closed at 711.49, down 21 points. a huge plunge at the times. general motors topped the fortune 500 list of biggest corporations that year. no apple, no microsoft, no

google or facebook. america was in transition in 1963 in ways big and small. studebaker was the first u.s. car maker to offer automobile seat belts as standard equipment. on december 7 at president army/navy football game-- delayed by the assassination-- cbs broadcast the first instant replay in t.v. sports history. and as the old year rang out, the number one song on the billboard hot 100 was by the singing nun. the american debut of a four-man rock band was introduced. ♪ he'll regret it someday

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fine-tune your personal economy. start today with a free one-on-one review of your retirement plan. >> this is the scene at andrews air force base where the casket bearing the body of president kennedy is transferred to an ambulance. >> reporter: only four hours after the president's death first lady jack jacqueline kennedy-- with brother-in-law robert kennedy at her side-- is back in washington, d.c. mrs. kennedy still wearing her blood-stained pink suit. she is said to have refused suggestions she change. as she put it "i want them to see what they have done to jack jax lynn kennedy was a symbol of courage that evening and during the days of mourning that followed. setting the right tone once again-- as she had during her

time as first lady. here's susan spencer of "48 hours." >> reporter: inauguration day, 1961. vice president johnson's 16-year-old daughter was mesmerized not by her father taking his oath -- >> i don't think it will make much difference. he's still our father. >> reporter: but by the new first lady. >> we all wonder what did she look like when she woke up in the morning? did she have a bad hair day like the rest of us? because we always saw her looking beautiful. >> reporter: this is a nice picture. >> isn't that beautiful? >> reporter: more important says linda bird johnson robb, behind the scenes she was kind, becoming a friend to an awkward teenager. >> mrs. kennedy was looking at me and thinking "my children are going to grow up in this environment. here is somebody who has been

doing it since she was born and somehow has survived." she was only 31 when she and president kennedy came into office. >> reporter: and she was about as stark a contrast to her predecessor mamie eisenhower as one could imagine says university of virginia historian barbara perry. >> she was the third youngest first lady and had these two beguiling children. the way she spoke was different in her breathy voice. >> dolly madison managed to save it. >> reporter: the first time many americans heard the distinctive voice was during her 1962 tour of the white house, showcasing its restoration. >> it's beautiful. >> reporter: 56 million people watched. jackie kennedy may not have considered her role political, but she was a huge political asset.

at home -- >> (speaking spanish) >> reporter: -- and overseas. >> the crowds would yell "'s jackie?" if she wasn't on the stage. her husband famously joked about it. >> i am the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris and i enjoyed it. (laughter) >> she would talk a bare shoulder under the arm of an important man and whisper in their ear and men would just fall at her feet. >> i thought of her as just larger than life. >> reporter: people still think of her that way today. >> very much so. >> reporter: why do you think that is? >> she was young and she never aged. >> reporter: because time froze in dallas. the image of her blood-stained suit symbolizing a different side to jackie kennedy.

>> somehow put steel in a backbone. that we can't go to pieces because she didn't. she was holding up the entire country and the world, because the world was grieving her husband. >> reporter: that point was emphasized by president johnson in a phone conversation just ten days after the assassination. >> there's mrs. kennedy in her breathy, flirty voice with lyndon johnson in his texas drawl flirty a accident,.

>> it's very flirtatious, but that was the nature of those two people and part of their power in politics. >> there's an elusive charm to jacqueline kennedy and i think that's one of the reasons we're so fascinated. >> reporter: lisa kathleen bratty cure@it is first lady's dmibt washington, d.c. where mrs. kennedy costume pearls still are a huge draw. >> these pearls went at auction for $211,000. >> get out! >> reporter: they're fake and they probably cost about $300 to buy new. >> reporter: and in the vaults, more kennedy memorabilia. >> this is the creche in the east room. >> reporter: including the 1963 christmas card. never sent. >> this family was gone.

this white house was gone in an instant. >> reporter: but no single instant can erase that enduring miss speak. >> young girls who were not alive come into this museum looking for this person that they are fascinated by that they want to emulate. that's the stuff of legend. ,,,,,

>> it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade group. something, i repeat, has happened in the motorcade group. there are people running up the hill alongside elm street by the freeway. several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time. stand by just a moment, please. >> osgood: there was confusion almost from the first when the shots rang out in dallas-- thence formation of the warren commission, a special panel to investigate the assassination. but as tracy smith tells us, that investigation fell short of satisfying many who believed-- as some still do-- that there had to be more to this story. >> as of this moment the report

of the president's commission is public record. >> reporter: 15 seconds after the warren report went public, walter cronkite summed it up. >> who killed john f. kennedy? the commission answers unequivocally lee harvey oswald with oswald acting alone. or was he a member of the conspiracy? the commission answers he acted alone. >> reporter: but even from the day the president was shot most americans had their doubts. in a 1963 gallup poll taken the week of the assassination, when asked if some group of element was also responsible for the killing more than half of u.s. adults said yes. in the absence of official information, rumors took route. the most common were that the mob was behind it, or the c.i.a. or fidel castro. just this year, former "new york times" reporter phillip sheen unanimous revealed that the warren commission went so far as to send a man to question castro face to face. in a clandestine meeting on a

boat off the cuban coast, castro denied any part in the assassination. still, the conspiracy theories piled up. oswald with his cheap little rifle couldn't have done it alone. an unending trade of investigators and news outlets-- not the least of which cbs news-- spent years and whatever money it took to find evidence-- any evidence-- that the official story wasn't the whole story. >> did lee harvey oswald shoot president kennedy? cbs news concludes that he did. >> reporter: in the 1970s, the house select committee on assassination confirmed oswald's involvement but left the door open for the possibility of another gunman. >> secret service men all around. >> reporter: the conspiracy theory has been kept alive by other revelations over the years like a reported plot to kill kennedy in chicago three weeks before dallas. but few things fueled americans' belief in a conspiracy more than this. >> once you conclude the magic

bullet could not create all seven of those wounds. >> reporter: in his 1991 film "j.f.k." director oliver stone made what might be the best case against the warren report. >> di definition there had to be a conspiracy. >> reporter: 22 years later stone is convinced he's right. >> government's lie. we've learned that since 1991 when the film came out that it's reinforced the notion that the governments have not been straight with us. >> reporter: do you see spearsys in everything? >> not in everything. we have conspiracies but we also have actions that happen randomly and accidents do happen. >> reporter: could it just be that we can't wrap our minds around the idea that the most powerful man in the world could be taken out by a nobody? >> but i can wrap my mind around that, sure. mckinley was taken out by an anarchist. lincoln was taken out by conspiracy, john wilkes booth was a totally emotional man. assassinations are often done by loaners. but i don't believe so in this case because of all the evidence around the plaza that day and

the autopsy and the gun and the bullet and the thousand other reasons that i'm trying to tell you, too. >> reporter: stone didn't stop with his j.f.k. movie. his 12-hour documentary series "the untold history of the united states" which aired on the cbs owned cable network showtime fills in the gaps as he sees them in the rest of the 20th century. >> dwight eisenhower put the world on a glide path towards annihilation of the most gargantuan expansion of military power in history. >> reporter: but stone says we'll likely never have definitive proof of what happened in dallas. you don't think we will ever know? >> i don't think it's going to be a smoking gun like you think it is. but i think if you go to the negatives and add them up your lodge lick lead you-- like sherlock holmes said-- to a deduction. and the deduction is that he was removed. >> reporter: by more than one man. >> yes. by more than one man. he was removed by our government. not the entire government, i'm sorry.

by certain elements in the c.i.a., i believe, controlled this operation. they're very good at this game. >> reporter: today questions about single-bullets and lone assassins are still being asked. but the answers are-- in essence-- always the same. you essentially put lee harvey oswald on trial and you won. you convicted him. >> yeah. >> reporter: former los angeles county prosecutor vincent buell east coastsy knows a thing or two about evidence. he put charles man son behind bars. >> is this what you expected? >> yes, definitely. >> reporter: he wrote a 1500 page analysis with the warren report and walked away convinced the commission got it right. >> i'm not just satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of oswald's guilt, i'm satisfied beyond all doubt. it's not an open question. >> reporter: beyond all doubt? >> beyond all doubt. >> reporter: even though oswald said he was a patsy and never admitted to any of it. >> that doesn't mean anything! if he had the immorality and the boldness to kill the president of the united states certainly he had much the much lesser

immorality to deny doing it. >> reporter: why are you convinced there was no conspiracy? >> i told the jury once, i said, folksly stipulate that three people can keep a secret but only if two are dead. and here after 50 years not one credible word of a conspiracy. not one syllable as leaked out. why because there's nothing to leak out. it's all simple unadulterated nonsense. >> reporter: and there are signs that more people are indeed wrapping their heads-- if not their hearts-- around the idea that oswald did act alone. a recent cbs news poll shows a majority still believe others were involved, but that number is declining from 75%20 years ago to 61% today. >> here comes oswald down the hall again. >> reporter: now as then it was unfathomable. >> i emphatically deny these charges. >> reporter: cbs news commentator eric sever ride might have said it best. >> what fed the conspiracy

notion about the kennedy assassination among many americans was the here is incongruity of the affair. all that power and majesty wiped out in an instant by one skinny weak chinned little character. it was like believing that the queen mary had sunk without a trace because of a log floating somewhere in the atlantic. >> reporter: and that conspiracy notion may likely exist 50 years from now. truth is, no amount of kefd explain what has been to so many the unexplainable. ment plan. i started part-time, now i'm a manager. my employer matches my charitable giving. really. i get bonuses even working part-time. where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. healthcare starting under $40 a month. i got education benefits. i work at walmart. i'm a pharmacist. sales associate. i manage produce. i work in logistics. there's more to walmart than you think. vo: opportunity. that's the real walmart.

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>> osgood: the name jack ruby is an essential part of what happened 50 years ago. for one extended family member, the name is also a good one. our denl reynolds has sought her out. >> this is the basement floor of the dallas city hall. >> he's been shot.

oswald has been shot! >> it was sunday, we always had chinese food on sunday. i. >> reporter: so it was an unremarkable sunday. >> there were police at our table eating chinese food, too. >> reporter: joyce berman remembers that day in november half a century ago when her mother unexpectedly picked her up from a friend's birthday party and took her home with the briefest and bluntest of words. >> she just said "your uncle killed somebody very famous." >> reporter: joyce was joyce ruby back then, nine years old, the niece of a dallas nightclub owner named jack ruby. the man who assassinated the assassin on network television. >> now moves in front of oswald, shot sounds. >> here comes oswald, he's -- he is ashen and unconscious at this time, now being moved in. he's not moving. >> i didn't feel any different

except for my last name being ruby and as soon as somebody knew what my last name was they would ask me questions. >> reporter: like? >> "are you related to jack?" >> reporter: when your uncle shot oswald did you comprehend it? >> no, i didn't know him. i'd only met him when i was an infant so i had no recollection of this person. >> reporter: so this is the south field house? >> yes. >> reporter: the instant notoriety was bewildering and frightening to this child in the detroit suburbs. >> i remember hearing shots behind the house. that's when they sent more police. >> reporter: gunshots? >> reporter: those shots led to orders to stay indoors. later came the taunts at school and the friendships that dissolved. >> i had a friend and she was not allowed to come to my house anymore since my uncle had a gun my father would have a gun and

it wasn't safe. >> reporter: her father was earl ruby, jack's youngest brother, the owner of a dry cleaners in detroit. >> i remember my father talking about my uncle as very patriotic loved president kennedy and was really, really upset when kennedy was shot and killed. >> reporter: as remarks he made during his trial and afterward make clear, jack ruby never denied his guilt. how could he? the whole world saw him do it. >> we the jury find the defendant guilty of murder with malice as charged in the indictment and assess his punishment at death. >> reporter: jack ruby died in 1967 while awaiting a second trial. but for earl ruby, there was still work to do. >> he didn't want to kill oswald

in the first place. he only wanted to hurt him. >> he didn't want people to think that my uncle was part of any kind of plot to kill, one, the president who he loved so much and then to be part of a conspiracy against our government. i just think he wanted to clear that idea. >>. >> reporter: so these are the telegrams your uncle received in the jail? >> yes. >> reporter: many of them were laudatory. >> congratulations, job well done, god bless you. has of the. congratulations for your most heroic and dynamic act. >> reporter: joyce's home became a repository for jack ruby documents and mementos after her father divide in 2006. this letter to your father from jack in which he still is trying to explain himself. this is, like, three years after the weekend in dallas and he

says "i was never involved in any conspiracy and did not plan to shoot him. after it happened i didn't know what i had done." then he says "oh, earl, how i wish this had never happened." it's incredible. he signs it jack ruby. not like jack. i mean, it's almost as though he knew the historic value of a letter like this. after reading through so much of this stuff and piecing together what she was told of her uncle, a conspiracy seems very unlikely to her. and she pointed us to a very mundane consideration. >> he had no children but he always had pets, dogs. and he left his dogs at home when he went to the dallas county jail. and if he knew he was going to do this, he would have made sure his dogs were taken care of.

>> reporter: today, joyce berman is no different than anyone else who lived through those days half a century ago-- still pondering the same old question without a satisfying answer. >> you know, i wonder why was he there? i mean, the press, okay. and the police escorting oswald, okay. i mean, there's certain people in are going to be there. why was he allowed to be there? i have a question about that.,,,

♪ camelot, camelot! ♪ >> reporter: glamorous and dashing as john f. kennedy appeared in life he has become even more so in retrospect thanks in large part to a highly publicized comparison that evoked an imaginary golden time. the with martha teichner now we revisit camelot.

>> reporter: it was jackie kennedy who brought up those lines her husband loved from a broadway show. "don't let it be forgot." that once there was a spot ♪ that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment ♪ called camelot >> reporter: it was in an interview with "life" magazine two weeks after j.f.k.'s death she said "there will be great presidents again, but there will never be another camelot again." yes, camelot. like king arthur's mythical land. so powerful an image in 50 years later, say the word and this is all most of us see. as if there'd been no dark side.

>> you're about to see john f. kennedy, democratic senator from massachusetts, face the nation. >> reporter: the myth making began when j.f.k.'s presidency was an ambition long before it was a fact. what we think of now as the classic camelot pictures were joseph kennedy, sr.'s idea. he had run a hollywood movie studio. >> he was a visionary. he recognized from very, very early in the game the power of the image >> reporter: i indira williams is creator of "creating camelot" at the museum in washington. >> it's a vision of a royalty type family. >> reporter: images by jacques lowe, the photographer kennedy hired in 1958, in his words-- to sell jack like soap flakes." >> he had just come back from 14 days of campaigning. >> reporter: "sunday morning"

interviewed him in 1993. he died in 2001. >> the last person he wanted to see was a photographer. but, you know, daddy said, hey this is going to happen. okay. >> this is the first photo in the shoot and you can see he's still not very enthusiastic about doing this on his day off. and then caroline gets introduced and his face just lights up. you see he's smiling, he's more relaxed. >> reporter: when j.f.k. saw the pictures, he got it. jacques lowe became the kennedy's personal photographer. he left shortly after the inauguration and the position of official white house photographer was created. there had never been one before. ♪ do you want a man for president who's seasoned through and through ♪ >> reporter: the kennedys did and didn't look like everybody else's family. they were rich and sleek and the

camera ate them up. the president was shameless about having his children photographed-- often against jackie's wishes. jack and jackie were, it seemed, in color. this is what their predecessors in the white house had looked like. >> there are these people who transcend ordinariness. the kennedys weren't ordinary. >> reporter: is it because of the visual imagely. >> visual, visual, visual. >> reporter: j.f.k. biography richard reeves edited the book "portrait of camelot." >> they were beautiful, they were young, they were hip, candid if not always telling the truth. >> reporter: theirs was a fabulous picture story, well edited. another joe kennedy quote "it's not what you are that counts but what people think you are."

americans didn't see jackie smoking, didn't know that the pictures could lie. >> we the american people saw the john kennedy -- thought that john kennedy was kind of the image of energy and good health when, in fact, he was sick his whole life. it was only later we found out how bad his health really was, that he had received the last rites of the catholic church three times when his family thought he was dying. >> one of the most famous pictures of president kennedy was taken by a "new york times" photographer. if. >> reporter: pete souza is chief white house photographer for president obama. >> the title of the photograph is "the loneliest job." and the reality of that picture is he's standing up and he's got his hands on the table because of his bad back. >> reporter: the job has changed since the kennedys from controlled to nearly total fly

on the wall access. historical documentation, not much myth making. when you see those intimate photographs with the kennedy children knowing what you do how does that strike you? >> i think it does tell you a lot about him as a person, as a human being, not just in his role as president. >> reporter: his assassination, did people take it personally because they had seen little children around the president's desk? >> yes i think that had a big effect. we're old enough to know that the shock was just unbelievable. we couldn't believe this could happen to him and to us. it was the end of innocence, the end of america seeing itself in a certain way-- that everybody loves us, that they all want to be like us.

>> reporter: he looked like hope in all those magical pictures. looked like optimism. ♪ think back on all the tales you remember ♪ >> reporter: the pictures tell the story-- a story of this man and his family caught in the mind's eye of the world. forever young in camelot. >> osgood: coming up -- >> do not ask what this country can do for you that. 's one of my original lines. >> osgood: that's when the laughing stopped. ,,,,,,,,,,,,

>> osgood: when dawn broke on november 22, 19163 the most popular comic was a man named vaughn peter. >> the past three years there's somebody going around this country impersonateing me.

>> osgood: a nightclub entertainer who hitched his store president kennedy's fame. >> i didn't mind around the washington, d.c. area but now it's gone just a little bit too far. >> osgood: in fact, his parody of the kennedy white house was the fastest selling record in history. it won the grammy award for "album of the year in 1962." ♪ jackie, don't you frown, my game's really easy ♪ >> osgood: it caught the attention of the president himself. >> i read mr. mader's record but i thought it sounded like teddy more than me. >> osgood: in his later years before his death in 2004 he worked as a part time musician and pub manager in his native maine. vaughn meader often described november 22 in 1963 as, in his words "the day i died."

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>> john fitzgerald kennedy, 35th president of the united states, leaving the white house for the last time. >> osgood: sunday, november 24, jacqueline kennedy and children caroline and john, jr., leave the white house to accompany president kennedy's body the capitol rotunda where it will lie in state. the words john f. kennedy spoke in public are an indelible part of our shared history. but to some americans, the words he wrote in private are what they'll remember most. here's michelle miller. >> reporter: "dear mrs. wily --" 50 years ago patricia kelleher, then patricia wily, received a letter from the president. >> "kennedy and i want to express our very deepest sympathy." >> reporter: her husband, lieutenant john wiley had just died in a catastrophic accident

that killed all aboard the u.s.s. "thresher," a nuclear powered submarine. president kennedy had actually handed lieutenant wiley his diploma from the naval academy two years before and patricia herself had met the young senator in his office as a college student. >> he said "i want you to know of my personal feelings of loss." that seemed to come from the heart. >> reporter: that letter is now among thousands at the kennedy library and museum in boston. >> i truly believe that you can tell more about kennedy the man, kennedy the president, these incredible times that he lived in through these letter than all the books that have ever been written about him. >> reporter: so martin sandler's new book is about kennedy's letters. a library archivist let us see them. wow! now we don't touch these, right? >> no, we don't. >> reporter: there is everything

from applause to school children who supported him. >> i'm grateful to you for your outstanding efforts on my behalf. >> reporter: to a note from the queen of england. >> it's difficult to read it because it's in her scratchy handwriting. >> reporter: i hope she's not watching! the letters show kennedy grabling with a whole world's worth of issues. when civil rights leaders were met with violence in the south, they pleaded with kennedy for help. he responded with a telegram demanding the governor of mississippi enforce the law. >> and then he says "i would like that hear from you this evening by wire." i'm the president of the united states, you damn well better. >> reporter: but letters were never more important than during the cuban missile crisis. kennedy and soviet premier nikita kruschev agreed to stay in touch with a continuous exchange of notes. how crucial were these letters in diffusing this crisis? >> in essence, you're looking at

the pieces of paper that avoided a nuclear war. >> reporter: tom putnam, the director of the kennedy library, showed us an early message from kennedy. >> this all started due to the actions of your government so you're the one who has to remove missiles. >> reporter: so you have to back off? >> exactly. kruschev replies "no, mr. president, i cannot agree to this. i think in your heart your recognize i'm correct." >> reporter: but as the letters go back and forth, face saving compromises the show up. kruschev says -- >> i'll agree to remove the missiles if you promise not to invade cuba. so here is president kennedy responding and basically saying "okay, i think we're getting close toe a deal." >> reporter: the range of people in kennedy's correspondence is enormous, from poet robert frost to a japanese officer aboard the destroyer that sank kennedy's p.t. boat during world war ii. he also heard from former presidents. >> mr. president, in my opinion

you are on the right track, don't let them tell you what to do. you tell them, as you have. sincerely, harry truman." >> reporter: after the assassination, letters continued to pour into the white house, but now they were letters of condolence to jacqueline kennedy. and perhaps none was as poignant as the letter from the widow of lieutenant john wiley of the u.s.s. "thresher." >> what inspired me was certainly remembering his letter to me but also seeing her on television and seeing her shocked and stunned face. i felt that was me. "dear mrs. kennedy, my deepette sympathy on the track i can loss of your husband. if i could take away the sorrow and pain, i would, but i can only share it." >> reporter: and she shared some of the words that president kennedy had written to her only a few months before.

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that optimizes raw data to help safely discover and maximize resources in extreme conditions. our current situation seems rather extreme. why can't we maximize our... ready. ♪ brilliant. let's get out of here. warp speed. ♪ >> osgood: sunday, november 24. mourners filed past the casket of president kennedy in the capitol rotunda. by the time viewing ends monday morning nearly 250,000 people have paid their respects. standing in a line that at times extended ten miles. the images of that long weekend of shock and grief made a lasting impression on countless young people just coming of age.

our contributor among them. >> reporter: those of us who were children when president kennedy died absorbed the assassination through affected hand on the grown-ups around us. the shock in the faces of the teachers as they whispered to each other before dismissing school, the grief we encountered in adult wes met on the way home. but most of all, the pained reactions of our parents. looking back across 50 years, it seems to me that november 22, 1963, marked the moment when the world war ii generation stopped thinking of themselves as young. president kennedy was the face of the vast population who grew up in the depression putting their dreams on hold and then fought the biggest war in history. when those veterans came home, they were in a hurry. they got married and had kids, they went to college on the g.i. bill, they built the suburbs and the interstate highway system. they were making up for lost time. to my parents and their contemporaries, president

kennedy represented the best of the best. the youngest man ever elected president came into office in a rush to get the country moving again. an author and war hero, he was charming, articulate and ironic. he was how the children of the depression liked to see themselves. my father always said that the day j.f.k. died was the day our country went from optimism to cynicism. his death changed the way his generation saw their country and themselves. they went almost overnight from young upstarts to the old guard, the squares, the ar chu bunkers. their own kids were so loud and entitled that they told them to get out of of the road, the times were changing, don't trust anyone over 30. within five years of the kennedy assassination the world war ii generation went from being the embodiment of youth to the silent majority. john updike and john cheever wrote short stories about fading men and women looking back on lost glories.

♪ when i was 35 -- >> reporter: frank sinatra, once the idol of the bobby sockser began singing about "the september of my years." "last night when we were young." "it was a very good year." ♪ i'm in the autumn of the year the and now i think of my life ♪ >> reporter: all the disillusioned don drapers nodded along. it was if in that winter between the death of john kennedy and the coming of the beatles a whole generation went from optimistic youth to disappointed middle age. after the assassination, the journalist mary mcgrory said "we'll never laugh again." and kennedy aide daniel patrick moynihan famously replied "mary, we will laugh again, it's just that we will never be young again." it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. that's why, 50 years later, the death of john f. kennedy still resonates so powerfully with those of us who were kids at the time.

it was the moment when our parents went from believing in all the great things that were going to be to regretting what might have been. >> osgood: ahead, for all time. and had them show us. r we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ to severe plaque psoriasis... the frustration... covering up. so i talked with my doctor. he prescribed enbrel.

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>> osgood: monday, november 25. three days after the assassination the solemn procession carried not his final resting place of arlington national cemetery across the potomac in washington. and arlington is where our remembrance of president kennedy draws to a close as well. as lee cowan is about to remind us, the flame lit by the first lady back then, still burns today. >> reporter: for half a century now through wind and rain and hail and snow it's flickered its solemn duty. grief and hope made tangible in the glow of a flame.

lighting it was the last public duty mrs. kennedy had that sad day. just where the first lady got the idea for the eternal flame isn't known for sure. perhaps it was their trip to paris or later visit to gettysburg. either way, author robert poole says the first lady knew it had to be here. >> she wanted arlington so that president kennedy would belong to the nation. >> reporter: arlington's section 45 wasn't meant as a presidential resting place. after all, the hill is pretty steep. but that hill mattered. it was a favorite spot for the president. he had visited arlington house-- that old mansion atop that hill-- just eight months before dallas. and while admiring the view from up here, he said something that day that was chillingly prophetic. >> kennedy just sort of drunk in the scene, he said "i could stay here forever." >> reporter: really.

>> here's here now. >> reporter: so much about that weekend was unexpected. but less than 24 hours before the barrier the superintendent of arlington got a call that surprised everyone. >> and somebody from the military district of washington saying "mrs. kennedy wants an eternal flame." and he basically said "what's an eternal flame?" >> reporter: with the clock ticking, the job fell to a group of army engineers, notely colonel clayton lyle and lieutenant colonel bernard carroll. >> my dad had a way of being very good under pressure. >> reporter: kairpl's daughter remembers it was a sunday, every hardware store was closed. so carroll and lyle improvised. their idea? a hawaiian luau torch. >> i can just see my dad thinking "well, this would work." >> reporter: but somehow mrs. kennedy going to light it? well, kathy's had an answer for that, too. this. >> i don't know what i was expecting but i think i was

expecting something a little busier. >> it's definitely just a simple piece of wire with just a piece of cloth that was doused in kerosene, i believe. doesn't have to be fancy to work >> reporter: and work it did. bill morris watched that lighting unfold. so it was a day pretty much just like this. >> it was a very similar day, sunshine, bright blue skies and clouds. >> reporter: a member of the army's old guard, morris was part of the grim pro stogs arlington that day and was later assigned to duty of guarding the flame as the nation came to pay its respects. >> in the morning they'd open the gates and it was like a flood of humanity coming up the roads. nobody was prepared for that. >> reporter: least of all the flame itself which-- try as it might-- wasn't exactly eternal. >> if you were assigned to the eternal flame you had to have a lighter in your pocket. every time wind blew, it went

out. >> reporter: it was even extinguished by a nun who accidentally blessed it with too much holy water. but eventually this flame was replaced by a more permanent more reliable system that lasted more than 40 years-- until last spring when the flame underwent its first major renovation. although new, it's still the same idea those engineers had all those years ago. what do you think he'd think that it's shrill? his task was to make an eternal flame and... >> and it's eternal. that means forever. >> reporter: it may have been a last minute addition, but mrs. kennedy's simple idea has offered eternal measures of solace and peace ever since. >> one of the first things that happens in genesis is "let there be light." light out of the darkness. there's some aspect of that at work, i think, and her decision to have an eternal flame here

maybe was purely instinctive but it i think had the effect she wanted it to have and then some. >> osgood: correspondent lee cowan. coming up, "face the nation" continues our remembrance of the kennedy assassination with bob schieffer in dallas at the sixth floor museum. and we'll be back in a moment.

>> "sunday morning's" >> osgood: we leave you there sunday on president kennedy's beloved cape cod, home to a national seashore established during the first year of his presidency.

>> osgood: i'm charles osgood. please join us again next "sunday morning" for our annual food issue. until then, i'll see you on the radio. know the feeling? copd includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. spiriva is a once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that helps open my obstructed airways for a full 24 hours. spiriva helps me breathe easier. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate.

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>> this is kpix 5 news. >> just ahead on kpix 5 news, aid to the philippines starting to make more progress as big center the title and devastation becomes more clear. >> a car accident shut down the bay area highway. we tell you why it took hours to reopen. >> and is the bay area about to endure another transit strike? how the discovery of an error is putting the agreement in jeopardy. thanks for joining us. >> i'm so material. a lot of news and talk to cover in the next hour. top story in the upcoming week is bart. >> it's bizarre that we are talking about this again. it turns out